THE FACULTY OF MEMORY.
To every reader nothing can be more important than that faculty of the
mind which we call memory. The retentive memory instinctively stores up
the facts, ideas, imagery, and often the very language found in books, so
clearly that they become available at any moment in after life. The
tenacity of this hold upon the intellectual treasures which books contain
depends largely upon the strength of the impression made upon the mind
when reading. And this, in turn, depends much upon the force, clearness
and beauty of the author's style or expression. A crude, or feeble, or
wordy, redundant statement makes little impression, while a terse, clear,
well-balanced sentence fixes the attention, and so fastens itself in the
memory. Hence the books which are best remembered will be those which are
the best written. Great as is the power of thought, we are often obliged
to confess that the power of expression is greater still. When the
substance and the style of any writing concur to make a harmonious and
strong impression on the reader's mind, the writer has achieved success.
All our study of literature tends to confirm the conviction of the
supreme importance of an effective style.
We must set down a good memory as a cardinal qualification of the
librarian. This faculty of the mind, in fact, is more important to him
than to the members of any other profession whatever, because it is more
incessantly drawn upon. Every hour in the day, and sometimes every minute
in the hour, he has to recall the names of certain books, the authors of
the same, including both their surnames and Christian or forenames, the
subjects principally treated in them, the words of some proverb or
quotation, or elegant extract in poetry or prose, the period of time of
an author or other noted person, the standard measurements and weights in
use, with their equivalents, the moneys of foreign nations and their
American values, the time of certain notable events in history, whether
foreign or American, ancient or modern, the names and succession of
rulers, the prices of many books, the rules observed in the catalogue,
both of authors and subjects, the names and schools of great artists,
with their period, the meaning in various foreign languages of certain
words, the geographical location of any place on the earth's surface, the
region of the library in which any book is located--and, in short, an
infinitude of items of information which he wants to know out of hand,
for his own use, or in aid of Library readers or assistants. The immense
variety of these drafts upon his memory seldom perplexes one who is well
endowed with a natural gift in that direction. In fact, it seems actually
true of such minds, that the more numerous the calls upon the memory, the
more ready is the response.
The metaphysicians have spent many words in attempting to define the
various qualities of the mind, and to account for a strong or a weak
memory; but after all is said, we find that the surprising difference
between different memories is unaccounted for; as unaccountable, indeed,
as what differences the man of genius from the mere plodder. The
principle of association of ideas is doubtless the leading element in a
memory which is not merely verbal. We associate in our minds, almost
instinctively, ideas of time, or space, or persons, or events, and these
connect or compare one with another, so that what we want is called up
or recalled in memory, by a train of endless suggestion. We all have this
kind of memory, which may be termed the rational or ideal, as
distinguished from the verbal and the local memory. The verbal memory is
that which retains in the mind, and reproduces at will what has been said
in our hearing by others, or what we have read which has made a marked
impression upon us. Thus, some persons can repeat with almost exact
accuracy, every word of a long conversation held with another. Others can
repeat whole poems, or long passages in prose from favorite authors,
after reading them over two or three times, and can retain them perfectly
in memory for half a century or more. There have even been persons to
whom one single reading of any production was sufficient to enable them
to repeat it _verbatim_. These instances of a great verbal memory are by
no means rare, although some of them appear almost incredible. John Locke
tells us of the French philosopher Pascal, that he never forgot anything
of what he had done, said, or thought, in any part of his natural life.
And the same thing is recorded of that great scholar of Holland, Hugo
Grotius.
The mathematician Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning
to end, containing nearly nine thousand lines. Mozart, upon hearing the
_Miserere_ of Allegri played in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, only once,
went to his hotel, and wrote it all down from memory, note for note.
Cardinal Mezzofanti both wrote and spoke thirty languages, and was quite
familiar with more than a hundred. He said that if he once heard the
meaning of a word in any language, he never forgot it. Yet he was of the
opinion, that although he had twenty words for one idea, it was better to
have twenty ideas for one word; which is no doubt true, so far as real
intellectual culture is concerned. Lord Macaulay, who had a phenomenal
memory, said that if all the copies of Milton's Paradise Lost were to be
destroyed, he could reproduce the book complete, from memory. In early
life he was a great admirer of Walter Scott's poetry, and especially the
"Lay of the Last Minstrel", and could repeat the whole of that long poem,
more than six hundred lines, from memory. And at the age of fifty-seven
he records--"I walked in the portico, and learned by heart the noble
fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. There are four hundred lines. I
made myself perfect master of the whole in two hours." It was said of him
that every incident he heard of, and every page he read, "assumed in his
mind a concrete spectral form."
But the memory for names and words has been sometimes called the lowest
form of memory. Persons of defective or impaired intellect frequently
have strong and retentive verbal memories. Mrs. Somerville records the
case of an idiot who could repeat a whole sermon _verbatim_, after once
hearing it, but who was stupid and ignorant as to every thing else. And
there are many instances in the books to the same effect.
Another kind of memory may be called, for want of a better name, the
local memory. A person who has this strongly developed, if he once goes
to a place, whether a room, or a street in a city, or a road in any part
of the country, knows the way again, and can find it by instinct ever
after. In the same way any one gifted with this almost unerring sense of
locality, can find any book on any shelf in any part of a library where
he has once been. He knows, in like manner, on which side of the page he
saw any given passage in a book, which impressed him at the time,
although he may never have had the volume in his hand more than once. He
may not remember the number of the page, but he is sure of his
recollection that it was the left or the right hand one, as the case may
be, and this knowledge will abridge his labor and time in finding it
again by just one half. This local memory is invaluable to a librarian or
an assistant in shortening the labor of finding things. If you have a
good local memory, you can, in no long time, come to dispense with the
catalogue and its shelf-marks or classification marks, almost entirely,
in finding your books. Although this special gift of memory--the sense of
locality--is unquestionably a lower faculty of the mind than some others
named, and although there are illiterate persons who can readily find and
produce any books in a library which have often passed through their
hands, yet it is a faculty by no means to be despised. It is one of the
labor-saving, time-saving gifts, which should be welcomed by every
librarian. The time saved from searching the catalogues for
location-marks of the outside of books, will enable him to make many a
research in their inside. This faculty, of course, is indefinitely
strengthened and improved by use--and the same is true of the other
branches of the sense which we call memory. The oftener you have been to
any place, the better you know the way. The more frequently you have
found and produced a given book from its proper receptacle, the easier
and the quicker will be your finding it again.
Another faculty or phase of memory is found in the ability to call up the
impression made by any object once seen by the eye, so as to reproduce it
accurately in speech or writing. This may be termed the intuitive memory.
There are many applications or illustrations of this faculty. Thus, for
example, you see a book on some shelf in your library. You take in its
size, its binding, both the material and the color, and its title as
lettered on the back. All this you absorb with one glance of the eye. You
remember it by the principle of association--that is, you associate with
that particular book, in connection with its title, a certain dimension,
color, and style of binding. Now, when you have occasion to look up that
special volume again, you not only go, aided by your memory of locality,
to the very section and shelf of the library where it belongs, but you
take with you instinctively, your memory or mental image of the book's
appearance. Thus, you perhaps distinctly remember (1) that it was an
octavo, and your eye in glancing along the shelf where it belongs,
rejects intuitively all the duodecimos or books of lesser size, to come
to the octavos. (2) Then you also remember that it was bound in leather,
consequently you pass quickly by all the cloth bound volumes on the
shelf. (3) in the third place you know that its color was red; and you
pay no attention whatever to books of any other color, but quickly seize
your red leather-bound octavo, and bear it off to the reading-room in
triumph. Of course there are circumstances where this quick operation of
the faculties of memory and intuition combined, would not be so easy. For
example, all the books (or nearly all) on a given shelf might be octavos;
or they might all be leather-bound; or a majority of them with red backs;
and the presence of one or more of these conditions would eliminate one
or more of the facilities for most rapidly picking out the book wanted.
But take a pile of books, we will say returned by many readers, on the
library counter. You are searching among them for a particular volume
that is again wanted. There is no order or arrangement of the volumes,
but you distinctly remember, from having handled it, its size both as to
height and thickness, its color, and how it was bound. You know it was a
thin 12mo. in green cloth binding. Do you, in your search, take up every
book in that mass, to scrutinize its title, and see if it is the one you
seek? By no means. You quickly thrust aside, one by one, or by the
half-dozen, all the volumes which are not green, cloth-bound, thin
duodecimos, without so much as glancing at them. Your special volume is
quickly found among hundreds of volumes, and your faculty of memory and
intuition has saved you perhaps a quarter of an hour of valuable time,
which, without that faculty, might have been wasted in search.
Again, another circumstance which might intervene to diminish the
frequency of application of the memory referred to, as to the physical
features or appearance of a book sought for, is where the
shelf-arrangement is alphabetical, by authors' names, or by the names of
the subjects of the books, if it is an alphabet of biographies. Here, the
surest and the quickest guide to the book is of course the alphabetical
order, in which it must necessarily be found.
This memory of the aspect of any object once looked at, is further well
illustrated in the very varied facilities for the spelling of words found
in different persons. Thus, there are people who, when they once see any
word (we will say a proper name) written or printed, can always
afterwards spell that word unerringly, no matter how uncommon it may be.
The mental retina, so to speak, receives so clear and exact an impression
of the form of that word from the eye, that it retains and reproduces it
at will.
But there are others, (and among them persons of much learning in some
directions) upon whom the form or orthography of a word makes little or
no impression, however frequently it meets the eye in reading. I have
known several fine scholars, and among them the head of an institution of
learning, who could not for the life of them spell correctly; and this
infirmity extended even to some of the commonest words in the language.
Why this inaptitude on the part of many, and this extraordinary facility
on the part of others, in the memorizing faculty, is a phenomenon which
may be noted down, but not solved. That vivid mental picture which is
seen by the inward eye of the person favored with a good memory, is
wholly wanting, or seen only dimly and rarely in the case of one who
easily forgets.
So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly denominated by
the German philosopher, Kant, "the most wonderful of our faculties."
Without it, the words of a book would be unintelligible to us, since it
is memory alone which furnishes us with the several meanings to be
attached to them.
Some writers on the science of mind assert that there is no such thing
with any of us as absolutely forgetting anything that has once been in
the mind. All mental activities, all knowledge which ever existed,
persists. We never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure.
One mental image effaces another. But those which have thus disappeared
may be recalled by an act of reminiscence. While it may sometimes be
impossible to recover one of them at the moment when wanted, by an act of
voluntary recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly and
vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange tricks, both when we wake
and when we dream. It revives, by an involuntary process, an infinite
variety of past scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions,
conversations, and written or printed pages, all of which we may have
fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.
The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the various mnemonic
systems may now be briefly considered. These methods of supplying the
defects of a naturally weak memory, or of strengthening a fairly good
one, are one and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive
objection to them, were they really effective and permanent helps,
enabling one who has learned them to recall with certainty ideas, names,
dates, and events which he is unable to recall by other means. Theory
apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely
or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would
deserve much credit. But experience with these systems has as yet failed
to show, by the stern test of practical utility, that they can give
substantial (and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects of
memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are
constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which
appeal to the sight. There is nothing new in these methods, for the
principle is as old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before
Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality. One of the
most prevalent systems now taught is to select a number of rooms in a
house (in the mind's eye, of course) and divide the walls and the floors
of each room into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then
"On the front wall--that opposite the entrance of the first
room--are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens, on the left
hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties, and on the
floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and 40, each find a place
on the roof above their respective walls. One room will thus
furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50
occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in
the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact
position of each place or number, it is then necessary to
associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so
that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly
remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may
immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the
objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or
from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at
once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the
ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places,
by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over
in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several
hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing
them only once."
This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too
mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take
note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the
mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a
rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles
the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more
yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the
system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on
mechanical or arithmetical associations--not founded on nature, and is of
very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit
of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a
logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.
Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic
systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a
multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than
rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they
are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the
other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they
cannot be highly esteemed."
In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of crutches, sometimes
useful to people who cannot walk, but actual impediments to those having
the use of their limbs, and who by proper exercise can maintain their
healthy and natural use indefinitely.
I have given you an account of one of these artificial systems of memory,
or systems of artificial memory, as you may choose to call them. There
have been invented more than one hundred different systems of mnemonics,
all professing to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible. It
appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems that they
substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas for a natural one.
The habit of looking for accidental or arbitrary relations of names and
things is cultivated, and the power of logical, spontaneous thought is
injured by neglecting essential for unessential relations. These
artificial associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding out
the natural ones.
How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened, or a fairly
good memory to be cultivated into a better one? The answer is, by
constant practice, and for this the vocation of a librarian furnishes far
more opportunities than any other. At the basis of this practice of the
memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends upon the strength
or vividness of the impression made upon the mind, by the object, the
name, the word, the date, which is sought to be remembered. And this, in
turn, depends on the degree of attention with which it was first
regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was
formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the
other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other
thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be
hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely to recall
it.
Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind intently upon one
particular object, to the exclusion for a time, of all other objects
soliciting notice. It is essential to those who would have a good memory,
to cultivate assiduously the habit of concentration of thought. As the
scattering shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random thoughts that
sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to no memorable result, simply
from want of attention or of fixation upon some one mental vision or
idea. With your attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it
more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the memory, as a
natural consequence. Not only so, but its related objects or ideas are
brought up by the principle of association, and they too make a deeper
impression and are more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully
observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another that is
related to it, and thus the faculty of association is strengthened, the
memory is stimulated, and the seeds of knowledge are deeply planted in
that complex organism which we call the mind. This power of attention, of
keeping an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed or
mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive element in genius.
Most people have not this habit of concentration of the mind, but allow
it to wander aimlessly on, flitting from subject to subject, without
mastering any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The habit to be
cultivated is that of thinking persistently of only one thing at a time,
sternly preventing the attention from wandering.
It may be laid down as an axiom that the two corner-stones of memory are
attention and association. And both of these must act in harmony, the
habit of fixed attention being formed or guided by the will, before a
normal or retentive memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating
the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more than close attention
to whatever we wish to remember, with whatever associations naturally
cling to it, until it is actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive
or naturally strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting the
days go by until he has improved it. The way to improve it, is to begin
at the foundation, and by the constant exercise of the will-power, to
take up every subject with fixed attention, and one at a time, excluding
every other for the time being. There is no doubt whatever that the
memory is capable of indefinite improvement; and though one's first
efforts in that direction may prove a disappointment, because only
partially successful, he should try, and try again, until he is rewarded
with the full fruits of earnest intellectual effort, in whatever field.
He may have, at the start, instead of a fine memory, what a learned
professor called, "a fine forgettery," but let him persevere to the end.
None of us were made to sit down in despair because we are not endowed
with an all-embracing memory, or because we cannot "speak with the
tongues of men and of angels," and do not know "all mysteries and all
knowledge." It rather becomes us to make the best and highest use, day by
day, of the talents that are bestowed upon us, remembering that however
short of perfection they may be, we are yet far more gifted than myriads
of our fellow-creatures in this very imperfect world.
There is no question that the proper cultivation of the memory is, or
ought to be, the chief aim of education. All else is so dependent upon
this, that it may be truly affirmed that, without memory, knowledge
itself would be impossible. By giving up oneself with fixed attention to
what one seeks to remember, and trusting the memory, though it may often
fail, any person can increase his powers of memory and consequently of
learning, to an indefinite degree. To improve and strengthen the memory,
it must be constantly exercised. Let it be supplied with new knowledge
frequently, and called on daily to reproduce it. If remembered only
imperfectly or in part, refresh it by reference to the source whence the
knowledge came; and repeat this carefully and thoroughly, until memory
becomes actually the store-house of what you know on that subject. If
there are certain kinds of facts and ideas which you more easily forget
than others, it is a good way to practice upon them, taking up a few
daily, and adding to them by degrees. Dr. W. T. Harris, the United States
Commissioner of Education, gave his personal experience to the effect
that he always found it hard to remember dates. He resolved to improve a
feeble memory in this respect by learning the succession of English
Kings, from William the Conqueror, down to Victoria. With his
characteristic thoroughness, he began by learning three or four dates of
accession only, the first day; two new ones were added the second day;
then one new king added the third day; and thereafter even less frequency
was observed in learning the chronology. By this method he had the whole
table of thirty-six sovereigns learned, and made familiar by constant
review. It had to be learned anew one year after, and once again after
years of neglect. But his memory for dates steadily grew, and without
conscious effort, dates and numbers soon came to be seized with a firmer
grasp than before. This kind of memory, he adds, now improves or
increases with him from year to year. Here is an instance of cultivation
of memory by a notable scholar, who adds a monition to learners with weak
memories, not to undertake to memorize too much at once. Learning a
succession of fifty names slowly, he says, will so discipline the memory
for names, as to partially or even permanently remove all embarrassment
from that source. I may add that a long table of names or dates, or any
prolonged extract in verse or prose, if learned by repeating it over and
over as a whole, will be less tenaciously retained in memory, than if
committed in parts.
The highest form of memory is actually unconscious, _i. e._, that in
which what we would recall comes to us spontaneously, without effort or
lapse of time in thinking about it. It is this kind of memory that has
been possessed by all the notable persons who have been credited with
knowing everything, or with never forgetting anything. It is not to be
reckoned to their credit, so much as to their good fortune. What merit is
there in having a good memory, when one cannot help remembering?
There is one caution to be given to those who are learning to improve a
memory naturally weak. When such a one tries to recall a date, or name,
or place, or idea, or book, it frequently happens that the endeavor fails
utterly. The more he tries, the more obstinately the desired object fails
to respond. As the poet Pope wrote about the witless author:
"You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home."
In these cases, no attempt to force the memory should be made, nor should
the attention be kept long on the subject, for this course only injures
the faculty, and leads to confusion of mind. To persist in a constantly
baffled effort to recover a word, or other forgotten link in memory, is a
laborious attempt which is itself likely to cause failure, and induce a
distrust of the memory which is far from rational. The forgotten object
will probably recur in no long time after, when least expected.
Much discursive reading is not only injurious to the faculty of memory,
but may be positively destructive of it. The vast extent of our modern
world of reviews, magazines and newspapers, with their immense variety of
subjects, dissipates the attention instead of concentrating it, and
becomes fatal to systematic thought, tenacious memory, and the
acquirement of real knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of
morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby,
uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a
scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk
lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase,
"goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who
continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the
pretext of "printing the news," inflicts upon us, is nothing benefited in
intellectual gifts or permanent knowledge. What does he learn by his
assiduous pursuit of these ephemeral will o' the wisps, that only "lead
to bewilder, and dazzle to blind?" He absorbs an incredible amount of
empty gossip, doubtful assertions, trifling descriptions, apocryphal
news, and some useful, but more useless knowledge. The only visible
object of spending valuable time over these papers appears to be to
satisfy a momentary curiosity, and then the mass of material read passes
almost wholly out of the mind, and is never more thought of. Says
Coleridge, one of the foremost of English thinkers: "I believe the habit
of perusing periodical works may be properly added to the catalogue of
anti-mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory."
If read sparingly, and for actual events, newspapers have a value which
is all their own; but to spend hours upon them, as many do, is mere
mental dissipation.